Finding historical parallels between the Arab spring and what happened during the Protestant revolution

One theme which has been on the mind of every intellectual in the World ever since the obscure fruit vendor at an obscure Tunisian town had set himself on fire is “Arab spring.” The most pressing issue for the intellectual community is seemingly to understand and forecast what could be the next in these turbulent times throughout the West Asian and North African region. Now following the events in Egypt, Libya and Syria there is also the considerable task to make some sense about the political forces which have been coined as “Islamists”. Much of the discussion about the situation in the region has been to understand and forecast about how would these “Islamists” would try to replace the existing system of the day.

One of the most familiar techniques used by analysts to understand a given situation is to compare the same with a historical event, find similarities and dissimilarities and come up with solutions. It would be thus a fair attitude to try and turn our focus on another very interesting event in the history of the Western civilization which may have quite a few parallels with the current situation in West Asia and beyond. We need to look back at the event of the Protestant reformation and the tumultuous events which followed it.

The Protestant reformation was in many ways a revolt against the existing order of the day which happened to be the Catholic Church and the monarchies which were allied with it. The chain of events had started with the invention of the printing press and subsequent spread of education. This gave the ability to a lot of popular and charismatic church leaders of the day to translate the Latin scriptures into their own languages and thus make it possible for a lot of education and awareness of the scriptures amongst the people of the time particularly those who could afford leisure and resources to afford a good education i.e. the nobles. This widespread awareness of the scriptures allowed the nobles of the day as well as the nascent urban artisan and merchant classes of the day to question the doctrines of Papal infallibility, veneration of Catholic saints and relics and most significantly the worldly rights of the Church and the Monarch to rule and exploit national resources as divinely ordained rights.

The rise of the Protestants (particularly the Calvinists some of whom would later go on to be famously referred as Puritans) tended to extract a harsh response from the existing order i.e. the Catholic Church and her affiliated monarchies like for example the Holy Roman Emperor Philip II of Spain. The revolting forces of Protestantism and the Catholic reactions would plunge much of the continental Europe into terrible bloodletting for decades which would only be culminated at the treaty of Westphalia when most of the combatants were either worn out or had decided in favor of prioritizing Worldly concerns instead of religious dogma by the respective churches.

The current situation in the West Asian region could also be thought to having similarities with that of the time of reformation. The political economy which had started its course ever since the end of the World War I and the subsequent fall of the Ottoman Empire, has been based upon a group of artificially crafted states who are ready to share their vital natural resources with the economic hegemonic powers of the day firstly Britain and France and then the US and erstwhile USSR (and may be China in future). The leaderships in these states have been prepared to buy the allegiance of their restive populations either by drowning their political ambitions in an ocean of enticements or submerging them in the darkness of oppression and tyranny. The economic hegemonic powers have been largely content to let things continue in these ways as long as the vital tap of cheap national resources was likely to continue. The first challenge to this system came in the early 1950-s when the then prime minister of Iran Mohammed Mossadegh nationalized that country’s oil industry. The subsequent Western intervention and overthrow of Mossadegh would ultimately make the way for a Western-backed tyrant to plunder that country and the suppression of all the opposition forces. Thus we can clearly see a clear connection now between the political and economic situation between that of the pre-reformation Europe and the pre-Arab spring political situation of the country.

Now here we can observe another similarity between the two situations. In the case of Europe, it has been the rise of preachers like Luther and Calvin who presented a more or less simplistic solution to what they considered existential problem in their times. They identified (according to the World view of the time) the Catholic Church as the diabolical root cause behind all the evil of the day and suggested replacing the authority of the Catholic Church with a system supported by a most literal interpretation and implementation of the new testament. Similarly we can see in West Asia from Iran in 1979 to Libya and Syria in 2011 that political forces who interpret their problems in a simplistic way to the misdeeds of either “the great Satan” or her “local agents” are gaining momentum and popularity.

The reactions which have given these nascent movements a baptism of fire are also quite similar in nature to the ones the Protestant movements in Europe found themselves into. The persecution of the peaceful protests in Bahrain and the bloody civil conflicts in Syria all attest to the fact. What complicates the picture further is the involvement of the Western powers in the midst of the events and their contradictory policies like for example supporting the rebels in Syria whereas at the same time either ignoring them in Bahrain and trying to crush them in places like Mali and Yemen. So should we expect another violent bloodletting and ultimately a peace when all the combatants are fatigued as it happened in Europe centuries earlier? It would be nice for those who are familiar with the Protestant reformation in the West to remind themselves of the history of Protestant reformation when they want to understand the current spate of tumultous events affecting West Asia

Finding the root cause behind rape in Delhi

Ever since that gruesome evening of December in Delhi which saw the rape of the unfortunate young woman there has been a lot of angry popular demands for delivering quick retribution to the perpetrators of this heinous crime. Considering that in India every hour sees the heinous violation of a woman, I guess it is time for us to look into the mirror and ask some questions about how women are perceived in our society. It is true that the perpetrators of the crime were scantly educated yet a lack of a proper education can hardly be considered as an excuse for this heinous crime. Now I use the word “scantly educated” to describe the attitude through these men may have considered their victim. It is this particular attitude which we need to consider when we decide to find the root cause of the prevalent rape scenarios in India. Considering that these men had very few opportunities to get a formal education (particularly for the 17-year old juvenile who has been accused of being a prominent perpetrator in this ghastly crime), their outlook and world view are formed by the predominant popular social culture in which they live and the most important element of this popular culture which plays a great role in nurturing these people’s world view has to be Bollywood, considered as India’s answer to Hollywood. Ever since India opened up her economy, Bollywood movies have gone a sea change and the media industry’s attitude towards women also has changed considerably in the last few years. Whereas in the 60-s and 70-s it was rare to see prominent heroines showing their navels, forearms or thighs, now days these types of expositions of women have become common place. The display of the types of female characters also has gone a sea change whereby previously the emphasis was given upon the female character being a proud daughter, obedient sister, a faithful wife, a loving and caring mother and truthful lovers, now days the emphasis has solidly shifted towards female characters who are not hesitant to use their suggestive charms to move ahead in life. There was a time when there was the thought to spread the message of Indian women being the anchor of the traditional family and now days the focus has shifted towards women using whatever means at their disposal to get ahead in life. This should be considered as productification of women since now days we see in our films that every feminine grace and charm of womanhood becoming a commercially viable product which can be lured to attract as many as young men as possible to the theaters

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Talking about the current productification of woman in Bollywood, one also needs to have a look at how the opening up of the Indian economy has played its part in terms of different aspirations amongst people. In the case of the rape victim and the juvenile perpetrator, we can observe this chasm between how different people look to live their dreams. The woman in question as we know by now belonged to a lower-middle class family who has had the option of sending their daughter into higher education in the big city since they could afford to sell a small piece of land which they owned. The family of the juvenile perpetrator presents a completely different picture to the family of the victim since this family was surviving on doing farm work on someone else’s lands and had very little in terms of fortune to send their kids to even a primary school let alone sending them for higher education. In fact we also come to know that the mother of the said perpetrator was forced to send his perpetrator son who also happens to be the first-born in the family to work as a service-boy in a Delhi restaurant at the age of 11. Thus we can see the two different India-s which came into being ever since the economic liberalization of the 1990-s clashing with each other as fierce competitors in an uneven game where there is very few if any decency or honorable conduct is part of the game. Is this the economic game our policymakers had in mind when they thought of unleashing the animal spirits in this country? After all human mind works in various intriguing ways which can be hardly fathomed easily.

Another question which could also be raised about the spontaneous protests and this does not bode well for the future of this country. Most of our protestors were fixated on seeking quick gratification for the horror by seeking death penalty for the rapists. Undoubtedly the perpetrators of this heinous crime deserves harshest punishment however is this also not a very good opportunity to tackle the question of the productification of women in the most popular cultural medium in India ? After all the productification of women in this country does very little to nurture positive outlook towards women. The public anger which is apparent at this moment could also be a very good opportunity to tackle the question of productification of women in the popular culture in India and how to prevent it.

We also need to ask ourselves another significant question. Why it was this particular gruesome incident, the rape of a young woman from Hindi-speaking background, which made it possible for the urban middle-class youths to come out from their self-imposed slumbers? Would we have been able to see the same outpouring of emotions on the streets of Delhi, if the victim would have been a Muslima from Kashmir or from any of the north-eastern tribes in India’s restive frontiers, considering that allegations of rapes of these peoples by Indian military men are not very infrequent in nature? This is one question we need to answer as we look into mirror to think about this particular tragedy.